Bucket-truck



(N0 Model.)

A- E- BROWN.

BUCKET TRUCK.

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IINTTEE STATES ALEXANDER E. BROWN,

BUCKET-TRUCK.. t

PATENT @FFIQE OE CLEVELAND, OHIO.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 369,912, datedSeptember 13,1887.

Application filed March 5, 1887. Serial No. 229,812. (No model.)

material in the usual dump-buckets in which it is handled in hoistingand conveying ma chines without breaking bulk or breaking the package.

It frequently occurs, in the handling of coal and other material, thatthe contents of the buckets of the hoisting and conveying machine haveto be delivered at a point at some dis tance from the line over whichthe tramway of the conveying-machine may be located and at some distancetransversely to said line, and it has been the custom under suchcircumstances to discharge or dump the coal or other material from thebuckets of the conveyer-machine into a truck or car, in which it wouldbe transported and subsequently redumped at its destination.

I have designed a means to avoid the breaking of the packages by the.transportation of the usual buckets back and forth to any requireddistance from thehoisting and conveying machine, the means foraccomplishing this end consisting, essentially in a suitable buckettruck or carriage mounted to travel on asuitable tramway or railway, andadapted not only to receive and retain in a filled condition the bucketslowered from an ordinary hoisting and conveying machine, but to alsopermit the dumping of said buckets,when they shall have been carried bythe said truck or carriage to the desired point, by the usual mode oftilting the bucket on its trunnions.

My invention may be said to consist, essentially, in a bucket-truckadapted to receive and maintain in a proper position and to also permitthe dumping of the filled buckets of any ordinary hoisting and conveyingmachine, and adapted to travel on a suitable tramway or railway to anydesired locality, at which place the buckets carried by said truck maybe discharged of their contents, all as will be hereinafter more fullydescribed.

To enable those skilled in the art to which my invention relates to makeand use the same, I will now proceed to more fully describe myimprovement, referring by letters to the accompanying drawings, whichform a part of this specification, and in which I have shown myinvention carried out in that form which is the best now known to me,and in which I have so far successfully practiced it.

In the drawings, Figurel isa side elevation of one of my improvedbucket'trucks, showing a pair of ordinary dump-buckets mounted therein,also showing a portion of the railway or tramway on which said truck isdesigned to travel. Fig. 2 is an end view of the same.

In both figures of the drawings the same parts will be found designatedby the same letter of reference.

A and'B representtwo similar dump-buckets of any approved form orstructure-such as.

are usually employed in hoisting and conveying machines for handlingcoal, ores, and other material-each of which is provided, as usual, witha suitable bail or handle, b, as shown, and is adapted to turn or dumpabout an axis of motion that is coincident with the usual trunnions towhich the said bails or handles are pivoted, each set of buckets beingprovided, as usual, with a suitable looking or catch mechanism, theoperation of which permits the oscillation ofthe buckets on thetrunnions to discharge their contents.

0 0 represent the side pieces or frame (made preferably of metal) of thetruck, and D D two pillow-blocks, within which are mounted the axles ortrunnions c of two pairs of truckwheels, F, that run upon the rails orbearing-surfaces of the stringers or track-beams G of a suitablerailway. From the framepieces or beams O O of the truck project,vertically upward, a series of posts, H, which 9 are arranged in twopairs and at such distance apart as to embrace (one between each pair)the buckets'A B, all as clearly shown by Fig. 1. Each of these posts His forked or bifurcated at its upper end, so as to re ceive within itsbifurcation and properly sup port therein a trunnion of one or anotherof the buckets, the extent or depth of the bifurcation in the upper endof each of said posts H being sufficient to permit the forks of thebifurcated portions of said posts to embrace laterally and hold in avertical position the lowermost portion of one of the bails or handlesof the buckets, as best seen at Fig. 2, the object and effect of theretention thus of the lowermost portion of the handle or bailinside ofthe bifurcated portions of the posts H being the retention of thebucket, which is locked to the bail in the proper position to preventthe escape of its contents until it shall become necessary to dump thebucket, and then to permit the dumping (by the use of the disengaginglocking device) by the rotation of the trunnions of the bucket withinthe seat-like portions of the bifurcated parts of said-posts.

Although I have shown the truck with four posts, H, arranged in twopairs, (the adjacent posts of the two pairs being braced together, asshown by bars (1,) in order that the two buckets may be supportedsimultaneously upon the truck, as shown, it will be understood that myinvention may be carried out with more or less advantage by the use of atruck provided with only one pair of posts, and hence adapted to supportand carry at the same time only one bucket. I, however, prefer the formof truck shown, as in handling most .materials and under mostcircumstances it is the more convenient form of the two.

In the use of my contrivance the truck carrying, for instance, an emptybucket, such as seen at B, (which may have been recently dumped'at someremote point on the railroad or track G,) is brought up to the point forrefillingby the hoisting and conveying machine, so as to receive adescending and full bucketsuch as seen, for instance, at A'. The emptybucket B is then lifted out of the posts H in which it rests, (either byslightly shifting the truck to bring said empty bucket immediatelybeneath the hoisting-machine or by hitching onto said empty bucket andpulling upwardly thereon,) after which the truck may be again shoved ordriven off in either direction required, carrying the full bucket, whichmay be dumped, when the truck shall have been carried to the desiredlocality, by unlocking the catch mechanism and permitting the bucket totilt on its trunnions, after which the operation of returning the emptybucket and receiving a full one may be repeated, all as will be easilyunderstood by those skilled in theart.

It will be seen that by the use of a buckettruck substantially in themanner shown and described the material filled into the dumpbuckets ofthe hoisting and conveying machine may be carried off laterally from theline of travel ofsaid conveying-machine in either direction and to anyextent, and may have their contents discharged into a car or boat, andby the usual tilting of the buckets at any given place without breakingthe package of material from the time the buckets are filled at thereceiving end-of the conveyer-machine to the time when the material maybe finally discharged at some distant locality.

Of course many variations may be made in the details of construction ofthe truck shown and described without departing from the spirit of myinvention, the gist of which lies in a bucket-truck adapted to receiveand hold in proper position one or more of the buckets of aconveyermachine, and to transport said buckets in a filled condition toany desiredlocality and there permit the discharging of their contents,as described, and then return them to the conveyer-machine for reuse.

WhatI claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

A bucket-truck adapted to travel on any suitable railway and formed orprovided with devices, as specified, which operate to receive thetrunnions ofan ordinary hoisting and c0nveying machine dumpbucket, andto prevent the said bucket from turning on its trunnions until, itslocking mechanism shall have been operated in the usual manner to effectthe dumping of the load, as set forth.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 31st day of August,1886.

ALEXANDER E. BRO WVN.

In presence of E. T. SoovILL, CHAS. W. KELLY.

